No Green Party, Twitter-Driven Miracle In Colombia as Santos Wins Big

Millions of Colombians turned out to the polls yesterday to elect a new president, and the environment, Facebook, and free-thinking lost out to security, money and familiarity.

Mockus' Green Party captured just 21 percent of the vote in Colombia on Sunday.

via Antanas Mockus' facebook

That's oversimplifying, of course, but for the last couple weeks it looked like Colombians might throw a wrench into the system by backing a Green Party candidate known for cleaning up Bogota with his eccentric plans -- including an army of mimes hired to shame bad drivers into following the laws.

But with 99 percent of the ballots cast, the Green Party candidate -- Antanas Mockus, a mathematics professor and former Bogota mayor -- captured just 21.5 percent of the vote. Juan Manuel Santos, the defense minister under current president Alvaro Uribe, doubled Mockus up, taking 46.6 of the ballots in a nine-way race.

All isn't lost for the Mockus camp: Santos didn't capture 50 percent of the vote, so he'll still face a run-off election against Mockus.

But the landslide of votes for Santos seems to suggest that polls showing Mockus and Santos neck-and-neck underestimated the support for Uribe's party, which is widely credited with reducing Colombia's murder rate and crushing the FARC insurgency.

Mockus' poor showing, meanwhile, shoots down talk that Colombia's election might have been South America's first decided by the social media that Barack Obama helped harness for his historic win.